Intelligent thermostats - the tado° way

Paul Hughes

Intelligent thermostats - the tado° way

02.04.2014

London, April 2nd 2014 - The UK becomes the epicentre of intelligent heating control. The U.S. leader Nest is just entering the British smart thermostat market where it meets for the first time competitors like the European market leader tado° and the UK based offerings from British Gas or others.

The majority of energy consumed in the domestic sector is for heating. The systems used for this are controlled by unintelligent technology that has been outdated for decades. Smart thermostats just start to conquer the still young home automation market.

One vision - different approaches

Intelligent thermostats help users to save energy and therefore money through a much smarter home heating system. At the same time they make everyday life easier and the user’s home more comfortable. British Gas’ hive focuses on a remote control enabling the customers to interact with their heating system via a smartphone, tablet or laptop. The U.S. company Nest with its learning thermostat goes one step further. It not only allows to control the heating system remotely but also learns the customers’ habits in the first few days and builds a personalised schedule.

With the heating app tado° the same-named Munich-based company has developed a completely new kind of smart heating control that adjusts the temperature automatically to the residents’ daily routine with no user action required.

The tado° way

The tado° control algorithms actually start to make heating control really smart. “We want to make everyday life easier. People shouldn’t have to deal with their heating so we have developed the tado° heating app that takes care automatically”, explains Christian Deilmann. The tado° app on the mobile phones of the residents detects when the last person has left the house. A signal is then sent to the heating system to turn down the temperature.As soon as one of the residents starts to head home, tado° reacts immediately and warms up the house to the desired temperature.

tado° places the user’s smartphone in the centre of its heating control solution. “People do have enough high-quality screens at home, like computers, smartphones, tablets and hence that it is not necessary to hang another display on the wall. tado°'s intelligence is in the cloud but can be reached from any internet enabled device”, says Christian Deilmann.

tado° is a DIY solution and can be installed by the customer in a few simple steps. Currently around 80 percent of our UK customers install tado° themselves. There is also an option to book an extra installation service.

After installing and making some basic settings, tado° works like a personal heating assistant without user interference and trains itself how to heat up the building in the most efficient way. With tado° consumers can lower their heating costs up to 26* percent.

After founding the company in 2011, tado° launched its intelligent heating app in November 2012 in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. One year later the German company started selling its solution in the UK and other European countries. tado° offers its users the possibility to either buy its solution for £249 or to rent it for £6.99 on a monthly contract.

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About tado°

Headquartered in Munich, tado°, the European market leader in intelligent home climate control solutions, was founded in 2011. tado° revolutionises the way energy is consumed at home. Through the use of a geo-aware app, tado° automatically adjusts the temperature based on the residents’ locations, enabling households to significantly save on energy costs while reaching a higher level of comfort.